Posts Tagged ‘Redesign’.

As UI designers, we’re always interested in learning, reading user research, understanding best practices and keeping up to date on all the latest approaches and tactics for building websites and applications.

One of the most exciting concepts we’ve started to apply to our thinking is the mobile-first approach, famously pioneered by designer Luke Wroblewski on his blog and then in his subsequent book. Generally, this approach provides a healthy way to gain focus, cut the fat and get to the heart of what’s important — for both content and interaction.

Redesign. The word itself can send shudders down the spines of any Web designer and developer. For many designers and website owners, the imminent onslaught of endless review cycles, coupled with an infinite number of “stakeholders” and their inevitable “opinions,” would drive them to shave their heads with a cheese grater if given a choice between the two. Despite these realities, redesigns are a fact of any online property’s life cycle. Here are five key indications that it’s time to redesign your website and of how extensive that redesign needs to be.

The first and most important indicator that your website is in need of a rethink is metrics that are beginning to tank. There certainly could be other reasons for this symptom (such as your product not fitting the market), but once those are eliminated or mitigated, a constant downward trend in conversions, sales, engagement activities and general user participation indicates that the efficacy of your current design has worn off.

There are many ways to skin a redesign (I think that’s how the saying goes). On a philosophical level, I agree with those who advocate for realigning, not redesigning, but these are mere words when you’re staring a design problem in the face with no idea where to start. This article came out of my own questions about how to make the realignment philosophy practical and apply it to my day-to-day work — especially when what’s needed is more than a few tweaks to the website here and there.

I propose an approach to redesign through realignment, by using a framework adapted from Edward Tufte’s principles on the visual display of quantitative information. But first, a little context.

It's 3:49 AM as I am writing this post. I just recently came up with a new format that I would like to start here on Design Informer and it is called "Weekly Wrap." Every weekend, I will be writing a post about the best and most interesting articles/tutorials/reviews/freebies of the week. But the only difference from this and the other similar posts from the other blogs is that mine will not be in list form, but it will follow an article format. Oh, and I forgot, I will also be inserting little tidbits here and there about how my week went and what I got accomplished, etc. So anyway, here it goes.

Redesigning a website is a big job (needless to say) and should be handled with care. Many of us with a portfolio, blog or other website have probably thought about a redesign or at least know we need one. For many designers, though, that redesign never comes. As big and important as it is, the job can turn into a hugely daunting task that we put straight on the backburner of our to-do list.

Why is doing a simple redesign so daunting? Why is it so difficult to follow through, even when we've decided to do it? How can we work on designing our clients' websites successfully every day and then perpetually neglect our own?

The problem is both a lack of correct planning and a lack of understanding of the root need for the redesign. Once we've identified these elements, we're set for success. In this article, we'll discuss how to plan and execute a redesign, and how to find the perfect timing for it.

Craigslist is obviously one of the most popular websites in the world, and each month it serves millions of users who post and view classified ads on the website. At the time this article was written, Craigslist was ranked as the 28th most-visited English-language website in the world by Alexa. Despite the fact that Craigslist receives such a huge amount of traffic each month, it is also criticized for its design, which seems to be at least 10 years out-of-date.

This very basic design has also become a huge part of Craigslist's branding, and it helps make the website memorable and instantly recognizable. As a result, the company has benefited in some ways from a design that many people consider to be very subpar. Over the years, as various design trends have come and gone, Craigslist has bucked the trends and stubbornly maintained it's bare-boned approach.

However, despite the fact that Craigslist has been able to benefit in some ways from its ultra-basic design, there are plenty of reasons to consider making some changes. A simple approach to design and layout that cuts excess and eliminates anything that is less than critical is typically assumed to improve usability.

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